Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

theregister.com

11–20 of 135 posts

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#11
post #4

I live in the Apple ecosystem and I know HP does a lot of consumer-hostile stuff but I bought my HP laser from Costco (who refuse to sell subscription printers) mostly because of it's support for AirPrint with no additional software. And it works, the quality is great, and I'm happy. Didn't have to install anything.

HP laser printers are not on the subscription model? I sought out a Brother laser printer specifically due to several bad experiences with lockout on HP printers.

HP printers with a model number ending in "e" require a subscription. If you avoid the "e" models, you'll get a normal printer.

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#14

Printing at home is so horrible. I have a printer connected to my Wifi router. It changes IP every time I reboot. When it changes IP, Windows can't find it. I can give the printer a static IP but how many people know to do this? Wifi has been around for more than 2 decades. Isn't that enough time to figure out a solution?

It could be your router giving it a new IP address, but the printer itself hopefully has a static MAC address. Check your router settings for static IP assignment, they may be under a section called DHCP. Over there you could give it a static IP address for its current MAC address

EDIT: this comment no longer makes sense after the parent comment was edited. It used to be explicitly asking for help and didn't mention any solutions like static IPs, nor did it spell out a general remark about how this complexity in consumer electronics is bad

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#16

I live in the Apple ecosystem and I know HP does a lot of consumer-hostile stuff but I bought my HP laser from Costco (who refuse to sell subscription printers) mostly because of it's support for AirPrint with no additional software. And it works, the quality is great, and I'm happy. Didn't have to install anything.

AirPrint isn't magic. It's just PostScript with DNS-SD bolted on top.

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#17

I live in the Apple ecosystem and I know HP does a lot of consumer-hostile stuff but I bought my HP laser from Costco (who refuse to sell subscription printers) mostly because of it's support for AirPrint with no additional software. And it works, the quality is great, and I'm happy. Didn't have to install anything.

Did you turn off the HP "DIRECT" wifi AP that screams at the top of its lungs and hogs valuable wifi spectrum? I live in a fairly low density townhouse, and 3 of my neighbors' printers are visible..

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#18

Printing at home is so horrible. I have a printer connected to my Wifi router. It changes IP every time I reboot. When it changes IP, Windows can't find it. I can give the printer a static IP but how many people know to do this? Wifi has been around for more than 2 decades. Isn't that enough time to figure out a solution?

It could be your router giving it a new IP address, but the printer itself hopefully has a static MAC address. Check your router settings for static IP assignment, they may be under a section called DHCP. Over there you could give it a static IP address for its current MAC address EDIT: this comment no longer makes sense after the parent comment was edited. It used to be explicitly asking for help and didn't mention…

It's actually sometimes sold as a "security" feature - short DHCP leases with no memory.

Which is kinda silly, if the router hasn't needed to give the IP to another client, just remember it forever.

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#19

Printing at home is so horrible. I have a printer connected to my Wifi router. It changes IP every time I reboot. When it changes IP, Windows can't find it. I can give the printer a static IP but how many people know to do this? Wifi has been around for more than 2 decades. Isn't that enough time to figure out a solution?

It could be your router giving it a new IP address, but the printer itself hopefully has a static MAC address. Check your router settings for static IP assignment, they may be under a section called DHCP. Over there you could give it a static IP address for its current MAC address EDIT: this comment no longer makes sense after the parent comment was edited. It used to be explicitly asking for help and didn't mention…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows

#20

I live in the Apple ecosystem and I know HP does a lot of consumer-hostile stuff but I bought my HP laser from Costco (who refuse to sell subscription printers) mostly because of it's support for AirPrint with no additional software. And it works, the quality is great, and I'm happy. Didn't have to install anything.

Did you turn off the HP "DIRECT" wifi AP that screams at the top of its lungs and hogs valuable wifi spectrum? I live in a fairly low density townhouse, and 3 of my neighbors' printers are visible..

It's not broadcasting that, so either I did turn it off (and then forgot), or it was off by default.

That's funny though. Can you connect to them and print them a message asking them to turn it off?

Post reply on HN